Tim Haughton, "Explaining
the Limited Success of the Communist-Successor Left in
Slovakia: The Case of the Party of the Democratic Left
(SDL')," Party Politics, 10 (March 2004),
177-191.

First Paragraph:One of the most striking
aspects of the 2002 Slovak parliamentary elections was the
collapse in support for the communist-successor party, the
Party of the Democratic Left (SDL') which failed to cross
the 5 percent threshold, managing to muster a mere 1.36
percent of the vote. The party's derisory showing in the
2002 elections, but also SDL''s failure throughout the
1990s, is in stark contrast to its counterparts in Poland
and Hungary. The turnaround of the Polish successor party,
Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland, for example, was
'stunning' (Gryzma-Busse, 2002: 3). After theparty lost
every seat it could in the semi-free elections of June 1989,
as part of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) the party went
on to win the parliamentary elections only four years later,
catapulting the party back into government. Although SLD
lost power as a result of the 1997 elections it gained
votes; a trend which continued in 2001 when SLD won the
parliamentary elections with 41 percent of the vote and
became the main party in government. Such success was not
just the monopoly of the Poles. The Hungarian Socialist
Party (MSzP) won the April 1994 elections with 33 percent of
the vote and became the leading party in government.
Although the MSzP lost the 1998 election, the party's share
of the vote held up (32.3 percent). After four years in
opposition, victory in the 2002 poll (winning 46 percent of
the vote) returned MSzP to power.

Figures and Tables:Table 1. Parliamentary election
results (% of the popular vote) of SDL' and its
rivals

Last Paragraph:The 1994 elections brought a
coalition of HZDS, ZRS and the hardline nationalists to
power. Thanks to murky privatization deals, a disrespect for
the rights of ethnic minorities and a disregard for the
constitutional niceties of democratic politics, the 1994-8
government sullied the name of Slovakia in international
circles and caused both NATO and the EU to reject the
country's advances. Slovakia was only resurrected thanks to
a broad-based coalition, including SDL', formed after the
1998 elections. Although the 1998-2002 government led
Slovakia towards NATO and EU membership, and more generally
towards international rehabilitation, the decision of the
SDL' leadership to take the finance portfolio, and hence
become the public face of painful economic reform, not only
caused the party's popularity to fall, but exacerbated
internal tensions within SDL' leading ultimately to its
derisory result in the 2002 elections.